Oil Paintings by Majesty to Raise Money for Charities

How I Feel Today - June 6

49cmx60cm © 2011 Martha Jesty

I decided to start this abstract art work a few days after June 6, 2011 to express what was inside me and how much the incident that I am about to explain has affected my soul.

On the evening on June 6 I suffered a violent physical assault by a man who had got away with his crime. HOW I FEEL TODAY JUNE 6 is about what happened.

I started painting light blues with red tones symbolizing my life like the dawn of the day…everything going very well around me in all the areas of my life. SUDDENLY, something hit me, a saw black, my body shrunk, stumbled, felt over, cried, suffered, was smashed; I was in shocked, in disbelieved, in great pain, a pain that can only be painted with my fingers with thick black strokes in the middle of a beautiful life, a life which has been marked by a sudden and wicked action from a bully.

The sudden and violent act makes the bottom part of the painting dark and grey, bluish and dark like skin bruises. Injustice splashes the scene with brown and black wings, the most painful part. The red is a feeling of raw injury which speaks for pure injustice which was created by the authority who decided on Friday 17 June that the words of the bully were believed rather than mine.

Who was there to witness what really happened? It was God himself; you can see Him on the left hand side hovering in the painting. There is no doubt that He is my greatest witness.

HOW I FEEL TODAY JUNE 6 is for those who are still waiting for justice to reach their lives, for battered women who suffer in silence the hand of the bully, for battered children who go to school badly bruised but nobody speak on their behave, for man who are not believe by the authorities that they are physically and sexually abused by women and men. This painting is for all those who are seeking justice and will not stop until they get it.

This oil painting raised £300 for the Lily Foundation charity on 7th April 2011 at Chinawhite, London

When I decided to start this abstract art work earlier in March 2011, I promised myself that I needed to feel each emotion before and during the painting of it. This is my first abstract work and I wanted to paint it as an emotion, as a feeling, as a sign, as a symbol of HOW I FEEL TODAY.

Something happened to me that week which was very unfair and unjustified. ANGER was my first emotion that week, consuming anger that I knew, as a trained counsellor, needed to be released before taking root inside my heart. I started painting with long thick heavy RED strokes symbolizing fire, blood, passion.

On the 11th March I woke up to the news of the earthquake in Japan and my heart sank looking at the devastation. A deep SADNESS inundated me that day and I painted the BLACK wavy ferocious claw, thinking about the mothers without children and the children without mothers. Black and grey mud, death, suffocation, cries, seas, loss, devastation and tears - I felt it all when painting.

The following week I had news that I had passed an important exam, news which I had been waiting for with all my heart. I was filled with HAPPINESS and start using YELLOW and ORANGE symbolizing warmth, Latin fiestas, life, joy, happiness and sun. This even touched the SADNESS because I learnt that in Japan they had found some people alive under the rubble after many days. LOVE came to me when many of my clients sent me their thoughts by email about how much they enjoy my Zumba classes and how much it means to them. I felt loved, nurtured and capable of receiving and giving love and used PINK to symbolize these feelings.

FEAR, came to visit me when I heard the news that my family, who live in the coast of Lima, was evacuated for a couple of days for fear of a tsunami reaching Peru. FEAR is a ghost looking GREY AND WHITE figure that is there but can’t be distinguished easily.

I believe that the most fascinating thing about this abstract canvas art is that it will mean to you whatever you want it to mean for HOW YOU FEEL TODAY.